


In Vino, Veritas

by dreadwulf



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Doing terrible things to Fenris, Drunken Confessions, M/M, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwulf/pseuds/dreadwulf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian has invited him to confess, and Fenris reveals a painful secret from his time in Tevinter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino, Veritas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cypheroftyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypheroftyr/gifts).



> Cypheroftyr gave me a great prompt, and this is what came out

“Will you take my confession?”

Sebastian blinked at the elf in surprise. He had sensed that something was coming. It was in the pregnant silence that Fenris had been cultivating all night, the furrow of his brow, and the determined way he had been drinking. Sebastian had never seen the elf drink like this, like it was a job to be done. No longer did he sip tastefully from a glass - he gulped, recklessly, from the bottle.

Before in Sebastian’s presence he had always been very reserved with alcohol, cautious, careful. Such caution had been thrown aside tonight. Starting at the dinner in Hawke’s manor, where Sebastian noted the dark cloud that sometimes surrounded his friend had grown in intensity, and back to his own mansion where the drinking had begun in earnest, despite Sebastian’s offer to keep him company, or perhaps because of it.

All of it pointed to something, but Sebastian had not been expecting this.

He sat forward in his rickety chair, studying Fenris in the dim light. The elf’s expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was tension there, and it made his human friend uneasy. Keeping his tone as unconcerned as possible, Sebastian answered him. “I would be happy to, any time you like. Perhaps if you would come to services tomorrow…?”

The elf stayed rigid in his own armchair, his legs pulled up against his chest. His armor he had removed hours ago, at the end of the first bottle, and piled it beside the chair. He looked much smaller without the metal plate and without his gauntlets. He looked defenseless, even though Sebastian knew him very far from it.

Fenris took another swig from the bottle in his clutches, set it on the floor beside his chair, and repeated his request. “Will you take my confession tonight?”

The chantry priest shook his head slightly. “Wouldn’t you like to do this in the Chantry? And sober?”

“I would not,” the elf returned immediately. “I would prefer to be as far from both as possible, to be honest.”  His speech remained precise as always; only a certain slowness and deliberation in his pronunciation gave him away.

“All right,” Sebastian acquiesced, not wanting to upset him further. “The Maker hears us wherever we speak the words.  Confess your sins, and they will be cleansed. Whatever wrongs you have done, they will be forgiven.”

A guffaw: a strange, choked sound that slipped out from behind Fenris’s tight expression.

“The wrongs I have done… It would take the rest of my life to tell them all,” Fenris said bitterly, “and I would not waste your time that way. No, I will confess only one.”  

He paused, looking down at the table next to him for a bottle that was not empty. Sebastian watched his hand reflected through the many glass bottles, grasping clumsily. It pained him to see it, this clumsiness, but he managed not to flinch, even when a sudden lurch sent three heavy tumblers to the ground with a resounding crash.

The elf displayed an effortful elegance as he uncorked the last bottle, ignoring the glittering shards of liquor-soaked glass that now surrounded him.

“I have been dishonest with you,” he said finally, wincing slightly as though the words pained him. “I told an.. untruth… and worst of all I told it to you, my friend, my.. companion.”

Companion. Yes, that was a name for the strange connection that was growing between them. It was something more than friendship and yet not physical; something like family. It was an ache in Sebastian’s heart whenever they parted. A longing in the night. Whatever it was, Fenris felt it too. For a moment the man’s heart soared at the thought of it.

But the look in the elf’s eyes brought him down to ground-level again. It was a look of sorrow – no, of pain. Obvious even from his seat six feet away, hidden behind his hands clenched on his knees, and with only the firelight to reveal it.

What could pain him so? Sebastian would take it from him if he could. He would do anything to relieve Fenris of his sorrows, if it were only possible.

“It’s all right,” he said, with a soothing tone he had honed over many hours of such confessions. “A lie is a small thing in the end. Tell me the truth, then, and all will be well.”

Fenris closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against his hands. “We shall see,” he said.

“There is no sin that cannot be forgiven,” Sebastian insisted, encouragingly.

“We shall see,” he repeated.

There was silence for several minutes, during which Sebastian wondered if his friend had lost his nerve. It was difficult, this business of confession. As fervently as he believed that baring his soul would help his friend to heal, to see this hurting him so made the priest reluctant to push any farther. Perhaps they would leave it at this — an untruth, unexplained.

Just then Fenris spoke up.  His voice tight with pain and trepidation.

“I told you a tale a few days ago, as we left the Chantry. I told you Danarius once killed a child at a party. For their entertainment, to fuel his blood magic.”

“I remember it,” Sebastian answered him. How could he forget? The thought of it had haunted him afterwards. As confidentally as he had asserted that all was to the Maker’s plan, in truth the plans of his ineffable and inscruitable god troubled him at times.

Bluntly, Fenris interrupted these thoughts. “I did not tell it true. It was not Danarius who killed the child. It was I….  I did it.”

Sebastian felt for a split second as though he were falling from a great height.

Fenris began his tale, his eyes still closed. “They brought the child from the gardens; they had caught him eating the vegetables straight from the ground. My master called me from my post and he told me to kill the boy – but do it slowly, to keep the blood fresh for his magic.”

Sebastian opened his mouth, but not a sound came out.

“At first I only stared at him, thinking I could not have heard him correctly. But he repeated that he wanted it done. And so I did it. I bled him. Before all the guests, I bled the child for my master’s conjurings, until at last he was dead, and they took him away. Then I resumed my post and everything continued as before. Only I could never forget it, the child and the blood, and my hands stained with it. They were never quite clean again, after that.”

Silence fell. Sebastian gaped for a moment, uncertain.  Then things righted themselves, and he could speak again.

“You master forced you,” he answered him. Try as he might, the studied calm with which he normally would address a penitent faltered, and he sounded angry. Not at Fenris, never at Fenris, but for the Imperium that had abused him.

The elf’s tone had gone flat. “He commanded me. A small difference, but an important one.”

“I told you, anything done at that monster’s behest is not your fault. The sins are his, not yours.”

“Aren’t they?” His eyes were open now, his gaze strangely intense. “Tell me, Sebastian – what would you have done?”

Sebastian answered immediately, without hesitation.  “I would have done no differently in your shoes. You had no choice.”

Fenris shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You, Sebastian, would have refused to do the deed, no matter what the consequence. You would rather die than harm an innocent child. Tell me honestly that this is not so.”

Sebastian rubbed his eyes. The hour had grown quite late, and he was suddenly very tired. “All right, Fenris. Perhaps that is true, here in Kirkwall, sitting before the fire. But there? In a collar and chain, under the boot of the Imperium? I’m not so certain.”

“I am.” He was strangely insistent on this point. “You are a righteous and good-hearted man. If the Chantry commanded you, however loyal you are to them, you would not do wrong. You would not obey such an order no matter the cost.”

Sebastian shook his head. “You think too much of me. Fenris, I am no more good-hearted than you. I try to do right, but…”

There was an edge to the reply. “You follow your vows, your creeds, without fail. You always do what is right.”

Sebastian reminded himself to be thoughtful in his answers. He had gotten much better at arguing since he had met Fenris. The elf would not accept platitudes and would debate points of theology, even basic tenets, with ferocious intelligence. You could not appeal to him on a spiritual level; one had to be rational, reasonable. Sebastian knew this, and yet reaching him was so difficult and his failure to do so was often upsetting to him. It was not a matter of conversion. His stomach was tying itself in knots at his friend’s refusal to accept comfort, even in its barest forms.

 _Follow the argument where it leads_ _,_  he thought. _The right approach will show itself._

“Yes, I follow the chantry’s orders. Much as you followed the orders of your master,” he offered.

“That isn’t the same!” he snapped. “You chose your vows, because you believe them good and right, yes? You are fulfilled in your calling. I see you. You enjoy helping people. You would not  commit such a terrible sin, violate basic decency, not for any reason.”

“But neither would you, now that you are a free man,” Sebastian pointed out.

Fenris was quiet for a moment. “I would prefer not to do such things now, of course. But I don’t know that it matters. The things I have done… there is no way to atone for them. No amount of good deeds could possibly make up for atrocities. I was the right hand of a magister, and I was good at it. I was a perfect bodyguard and soldier and I did everything he ever required of me.”

“You felt nothing then? Did please you to do these things? No revulsion, no reluctance?”

“Both! But don’t you see?” Those luminous green eyes were wide open now, and shot through with disgust. “That is worse! I knew it was wrong, and still I did not resist.”

Sebastian wrestled back frustration. He felt it vitally important that he make Fenris understand.  “And what would Danarius have done had you resisted. Punished you? Killed you? Would that have saved the child? Do you honestly think the man would have hesitated to do the deed himself?”

Fenris had no answer for this, and Sebastian pushed on.

“You had no choice, Fenris. You were not asked to kill or not to kill, you were commanded. If you had any other option you would have taken it, but he gave you none. That crime is on his head.”

Sebastian realized that the drink had finally caught up to Fenris; his eyes had glazed over, and he seemed to be holding himself very still to prevent leaning to and fro like a ship at sea. But still his mind was whirling, only perhaps slowed, and his pain remained clear and sharp, not a bit dulled by the wine. Such mercies, as so often in the past, had been denied him.

“I had an option,” Fenris said quietly. “Unspoken, but there, always there. Obey….. or die.”

Sebastian stopped short, his breath catching. “That is no option at all.”

Fenris had gone still, and did not reply.

“Fenris.  You did what you had to do to survive. It is not a sin to survive.”

The elf looked down at the floor, as he often did when shamed, and Sebastian knew he had struck something deep and agonizing within him. 

The sight of it nearly crushed him. It rose a hard knot in Sebastian’s throat to see that Fenris could be ashamed of having lived through these terrible things, that he could think for a moment that he should not be alive.

If he had not.. But no, he could not consider it, the thought of Fenris not escaping to Kirkwall, not becoming the man he was. Not living free. And Sebastian never meeting him, the place he had made for him in his heart remaining empty forever. It was all of it too awful to imagine.

At a time like this he wished for Elethina, or one of the saints of old, to give him the wisdom and the eloquence to speak with. He was not a poet or a counselor. He did not know the right words to say. Anything he could think, all the canticles and verses and the platitudes he had been taught sounded so dreadfully insufficient to him now.

He chose to be honest, instead. He leaned forward, folding his hands before him. “Fenris, I… I cannot say what I would have done in that situation. I have never known such hardships… my life has really been very easy in comparison. Whatever troubles I have had, I handled rather badly. You did not know me in my youth, when I was callous and reckless. I avoided my responsibilities, I squandered what I had… I took everything for granted, and I ran from my problems. And those problems were trifles, absolute trifles. Nothing like the life you have lead. I know that if I had been in your place… I would have died. There is no question in my mind. I wouldn’t have been strong enough. Not in mind, not in spirit, certainly not in body. I would simply have laid down and died.”

Fenris was quiet throughout this long speech, and at its end he shifted in his chair, brow furrowed. “What does it say of me, then, that I lived through it all?” he murmured suddenly. “So many did not. There were many who died, or were killed, or simply wasted away to nothing. Yet I lived, I even thrived. I grew strong, strong enough to run when the time came. What does it mean?”

“That they could not destroy you. That there was a future waiting for you, that the Maker chose for you —”

“Forget the Maker,” Fenris said distantly, staring at nothing. “He cursed me to the Void long ago if ever He gave me a thought. I want your forgiveness, Sebastian, not His.”

“But I cannot,” Sebastian tried to explain, and he saw Fenris recoil. “It is not my place to forgive. Only the Maker forgives… what I think is immaterial.”

“You cannot,” he echoed, sinking back in his chair. His face had gone curiously blank.

“Only because it is not within my power. Fenris, I…” He reached out for him even as the elf pulled away, stiffening, and Sebastian saw that he was causing more pain with every word, for Fenris only heard him saying No.

_No, I do not forgive you. No, what you did, what you are, is unforgivable. I cannot._

And Sebastian would never say those things. How could he? He loved Fenris. He was more certain of it now than he had ever been.

Almost against his will the prince of Starkhaven was slipping from his chair, going to Fenris, needing to touch him. The compulsion was too powerful to contain, even if he had thought to contain it. It happened faster than thought, born of pure feeling, pure adoration.

He had sworn so many vows in his life. He felt himself about to swear another.

He crossed the few feet between them in a moment and found himself dropping to his knees before the man he admired more than anyone he had ever met. It was the purest demonstration of what he felt at that moment, to fall at his feet. From the dirty floor he gazed up at the elf, his face shining with all the tenderness his generous heart could muster.

It seemed to frighten Fenris, to have Sebastian kneeling before him. He shook his head sharply, his eyes wide. He did not understand. It seemed wrong, seemed reversed. He was the one who should prostrate himself before the priest, or supplicate the prince, not the other way around.

“Don’t,” he tried to tell him, but it came out in only a shocked whisper, smothered by the look on the man’s face.

Sebastian spoke gently now, gently but fervently, looking up into his eyes. “Listen to me. If my opinion means so much to you, then listen. You are a new man now. You lived through a nightmare that was not your making. When you left the Imperium, when you ran, you were reborn. That moment, that choice, and every choice you have made since then - those you own. That is who you are. Not what came before.”

Fenris blinked and looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “I cannot simply forget,” he murmured, sounding lost. His hands opened and closed again in his lap, until Sebastian reached for them. Their fingers brushed, the barest touch, and the lyrium-lined hands were stiilled again.

“Forgive, not forget,” Sebastian insisted. When Fenris did not withdraw from his touch he  grabbed both of his hands and held them. “Fenris. You don’t need my forgiveness. What you need is someone to give you permission to forgive yourself. Isn’t that it?”

“… Perhaps.” Fenris shook his head slowly. He looked down at their hands entwined in his lap as if he was not sure what to make of them. “Maybe so. I don’t know… I don’t know if I can. There were so many things that I, I cannot bear to remember them. Terrible things.”

“There is nothing about you that is not forgivable. I promise you, Fenris. The Maker forgives you. And I… I would not turn from you, not for anything that happened. There is nothing that you could tell me that would make me not care for you.”

The elf took a shaky breath, still holding very still. But his hands moved against the other man’s, tenatively, accepting their warmth.

“If you really knew the things I’ve done… what I was  _for_ …”

“I am  _glad_ , Fenris, for anything you had to do to survive,” he insisted. “If you had not, if you had died, it would have been a loss of a beautiful soul from this world.”

Fenris blinked back at him, meeting his eyes at last. “You are… glad? You are glad that I did this thing?”

“Perhaps that is  _my_  sin.” Sebastian smiled. “I am glad for everything that has brought you here, so that I could meet you. I thank the Maker for it. I thank him for you, Fenris. In every prayer.”

He brought the elf’s left hand to his face and kissed it, reverently.

Sebstian could have sworn he saw tears standing in Fenris’s eyes, just for a moment, as he returned their hands to his lap. Then they were blinked back, stubbornly. He sighed, and smiled, and suddenly the elf looked very much more like himself.

“I do not have much to say to the Maker, myself. But perhaps I should thank Him too. For this. For you.”

Sebastian grinned, relief and joy flooding him at those words.

Hesitantly, Fenris removed a hand from the human’s grasp, and brought it up to his face. Lightly, he traced the outline of Sebastian’s cheek as he knelt before him.

It had been so long since he had been touched. The sensation of even this barest touch sent shivers all through the chantry priest. He closed his eyes, and every part of him shuddered in pleasure.  

Fenris continued to caress his face as he spoke.

“Perhaps you are a new man too. Perhaps you have choices of your own to make. Or… have I misunderstood?”

The hand withdrew abruptly. Sebastian felt its absence, its own sensation of lack, as something he would now carry with him always.

He opened his eyes.

The elf’s green eyes were staring directly into his. They were so beautiful. He had never dared to look at them so closely, or for so long. They were knowing, these eyes. They knew his weakness, his indecision, and they understood.

He felt he could not breathe for the ache in his heart.

“Thank you,” Fenris said to him. “For taking my confession.”

“The Maker’s mercy bring you peace,” he replied automatically, his mouth gone dry. Then, sincerely, he added, “Thank you for giving it.”

He rose to his feet and left Fenris in his chair in front of the fire, and returned to the Chantry to pray.


End file.
